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CNN Live Saturday

White House Agrees to Retain Records Related to Enron

Aired February 02, 2002 - 17:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: The aftershocks from the Enron collapse are reverberating across Washington. The White House has agreed to comply with a request from the Justice Department to retain all records over the last three years relating to its business with the now bankrupt company. But could this pose a problem for the Bush administration as it refuses to turn over other documents? CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Bush advisers called the Justice Department's directive about Enron documents "a prudent move" that would not cause political problems for Mr. Bush. A senior administration official told CNN, quote: "Any and all papers related to this matter will show everyone in the Bush administration acted in complete accordance with the law." A point Mr. Bush stressed on Monday.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, Enron made contributions to a lot of people around Washington, D.C. And if they came to this administration looking for help, they didn't find any.

WALLACE: In its letter Friday, the Justice Department asks the White House to hold on to all Enron-related documents, notes and e- mails since January 1999, covering two years of the Clinton administration and the Bush presidency, saying the records, quote: "May contain information relevant to our investigation."

The directive could complicate the likely court battle between the White House and the Congress' investigative arm, the General Accounting Office. The administration is refusing to turn over information about the work of Vice President Cheney's energy task force, which included meetings with Enron executives. Congress is raising the question if the White House one day provides that information to federal prosecutors, why wouldn't it turn over the information to lawmakers?

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: No one is saying the White House did anything wrong. The question is, really, but did Enron try to have undue influence, and was that undue influence transitioned into public policy.

WALLACE: Another pressure on the White House, a Tuesday deadline to tell a federal judge why the vice president has a constitutional right to keep his task force meetings secret -- this in response to a lawsuit filed by a conservative watchdog group.

LARRY KLAYMAN, JUDICIAL WATCH: The American people deserve full disclosure, and that way they will be able to judge for themselves whether anything untoward was going on between these energy companies and the Bush-Cheney administration.

WALLACE: These development come as the president has tried to distance himself from the Enron debacle.

(on camera): But that will be hard this week, as Ken Lay, the former Enron chairman, goes before Congress on Monday, a man who was a big contributor to Mr. Bush's political campaigns, but also someone who, according to Bush advisers, approached the administration last year for help before his company collapsed, and was turned away.

Kelly Wallace, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Well, what message does this request from the Justice Department send, and how will it play in the large scale Enron investigation? Joining us from Washington with some insight is Jeffrey Harris. Mr. Harris served as deputy associate attorney general during the Reagan administration. Thanks for joining us.

Mr. Harris, does this request from the Justice Department indicate in any way that White House may have already disposed of some documents, and the Justice Department wants them to just discontinue that?

JEFFREY HARRIS, FORMER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, I think the request, frankly, has two purposes. One, I believe the Justice Department wants to make sure that they ask for this so that later on if anything is missing they can't be criticized.

And second, in the past, where there have been investigation of the White House, very often it turns out after the fact that some middle-level or low-level staffer or occasionally a high-level staffer decided to get rid of some things, take matters into his or her own hands, and I think the Justice Department wanted to make sure that that did not happen in this case, or if it does happen, it's over the Justice Department objection via these instructions.

WHITFIELD: Documents, this is a broad brush description, but what might this include? Computer correspondence? Memos, notes? What in your view might this mean?

HARRIS: Documents, documents frankly means any form of recording, whether that be written, electronic, computer stored or otherwise -- photographic -- that has any information relating to the subject matter. It's not limited to hard copies. And in litigation today in all matters, documents generally have this broad definition.

WHITFIELD: And how might this be related to the GAO request that Vice President Cheney cooperate further with them? Are these two linked, or are they acting separately?

HARRIS: Well, you know, that's where this gets interesting. This request can be viewed both as a sword and a shield. You can make one argument that if you are going to preserve the papers and if they're going to be turned over to the Justice Department for an investigation, they ought to be available to the Congress.

But often what happens is the fact of a Justice Department investigation, a criminal investigation, is used as a reason to refuse to give Congress documents, because it is often said that as long as there is a criminal investigation going on, that ought to take precedence and the Congress will just have to wait. So -- I think we may see that play out in days to come.

WHITFIELD: As a former Justice Department official, does something smell fishy to you here?

HARRIS: Well, not so far. Not so far. All of the indications to date, this one does not look like it has -- it has those earmarks. That does not mean that that's 100 percent, but all the indications to date indicate that while there clearly was a close relationship between the Bush administration and Enron and other Texas interests, including oil and gas, so far, we don't have any indication of anything wrong here.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks very much, Jeffrey Harris. It will continue to get interesting as hearings this week begin on Capitol Hill this week involving the Enron investigation.

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